Bat Battle: Who's The Best Movie Batman?

Michael Keaton. Christian Bale. Val Kilmer. George Clooney. Even, yes, Adam West (he did a Batman film during the TV show's run). All of them have donned the bat-ears, the billowy cape, and the pointy gloves for one movie or another, to varying levels of success. Some became fan favorites; others, The Batmen We Do Not Speak Of.

We've gone back through all the batfilms and watched them exhaustively-even Batman & Robin, so that should tell you how seriously we took it. Examining criteria as diverse as ass-kicking ability, scoring tail, and homoerotic undertones, we crunch the numbers to give you the Best Movie Batman Ever (so far).

#5. ADAM WEST - Batman: The Movie (1966)

Coolness of CostumeIn a word: dignified. That's what Adam West's Batman isn't. Tiny little nubbin bat-ears, a bat emblem that looks like it's slid halfway down his sallow, pectorally-absent chest, and a cape so wrinkled it makes one wonder if Batman had a long layover in Houston with his costume bunched up in his carry-on.

The worst offense, though, has to be the painted-on eyebrows. The point of Batman's costume is to strike fear in the hearts of criminals, not to make them wonder why he always looks surprised to see them, like he recognizes them from high school or something. "Tom... Tom Franklin? You son of a bitch, get over here, you!"

Also, we didn't bother to include a picture of Batman's bat-package (you're welcome), but let's just say '60s Batman's genital-hugging blue satin panties don't leave a lot to the imagination. Ignorant as to whether or not Adam West is circumcised? Anybody who watched Batman: The Movie can't, unfortunately, say the same.

Ass-Kicking Ability
BatWest fights like someone having a stroke. To be fair, Batman: The Movie's
supposed to be campy. To once again be unfair, it looks like they didn't so
much choreograph their fights as just run around
flailing their arms like the set just caught on fire:

[whistling] Man, let that in. BatWest just got his ass handed to him there by a quacking Burgess Meredith
with a pillow under his tuxedo. That's the point in your crime-fighting
career where you just need to stop and frankly assess some things that might have gotten away from you. If
BatWest had to fight a six-year-old girl on crutches, frankly,
it could go either way.

Those Wonderful Toys
BatWest had the Batmobile, the Batcopter, the Batcycle, and the
Batcave. But whatever-every Batman has those. What
puts BatWest's bat-gadgets head and shoulders above any other movie Batman's gadgets was his magical utility belt, which housed roughly 60
billion bat-themed doohickeys that could be pulled out in any situation
whatsoever. Need something soldered? Batblowtorch! Getting gassed by
the Penguin? Anti-Penguin gas pills! Want a sandwich sliced? Batlaser! Motherfucker even had Bat-shark repellent on hand:

Smoothness with the Ladies BatWest must have realized how not macho he looked running around in
tight satin panties, and so overcompensated with his alter ego Bruce Wayne, swinging '60s bachelor. The sly grin, slicked-back hair, and ascot (right) combine to make him look like the guest star on an all-sexual predator episode of The Love Boat. Come. And. Get it, ladies.

Plus, if the tell-all autobiographies written by the cast are to be
believed, Adam West spent
the majority of the TV series and motion picture getting drunk, doing drugs, and attempting
to nail any co-star with a pulse and a vagina. Whether or not this was
a good thing or a bad thing depends, we suppose, on your stance on this sort of behavior and whose autobiography you're reading.

Posse
Robin "helps out" (i.e., gets
kidnapped every 10 minutes), and Commissioner Gordon and Irish stereotype Chief "Bless Me Shamrocks" O'Hara
could be counted on to be useless enough to need Batman's assistance
on pretty much every single crime committed in Gotham City. Take a breath mint
from the Commissioner's desk without asking, and he'd be leaping across
his office to the Batphone to get some help cracking the case.

Homoerotic Subtext?BatWest got around that whole "living (and fighting crime in his underpants) with a minor"
thing by having Aunt Harriet move in with them, presumably to keep an
eye out for any shenanigans of the homosexual variety. Having said that, they managed to hide
secret identities and a vast underground cave fortress with a helicopter pad from her, meaning
she was either pretty liberal about the whole thing or had the observational skills of a particularily stupid earthworm.